Another Reason To Avoid Craigslist

This Man Received Islamophobic Texts After Canceling A Paint Job

Finding people to provide a service on Craigslist is always a gamble. Sometimes you end up with the best bicycle repairman ever. And sometimes you get a painting company that is unreliable and Islamophobic.DCist reports that Washington, D.C., resident Aaditya Shah hired a painting company called Paint1ng.com he found on the Internet's sketchy classified section to come for a job at 8 a.m. With the workers already behind schedule, Shah got a call saying they would be running an additional 45 minutes late. Shah couldn't wait around that long, and opted to cancel the job entirely. After some texting back and forth, the owner of the painting company broke the cardinal rule of a good businessman (and of good people, in general). He sent Shah a text that said, "Death to Muslims." Terrifyingly, the message was accompanied by a photo of Shah from Facebook. To perform a threatening hat trick, a third message came through: "Get out of my country bitch."

Shah is neither Muslim nor an immigrant; he is a U.S. citizen and a lifelong resident of D.C. But the fact that the texter's hate was misdirected makes no difference. The police are looking into the incident (which included a threat from an identified man over the phone) for possible felony charges.

An interview DCist had with Paint1ing's owner, who called himself Rich Trevor Dickey, reveled he seems to feel justified in his use of hate speech. He explained, "It was probably a bad thing to do, but it's not a reflection of our business because we didn't do any business with him. It's more of a heat-of-the-moment deal. Of course it was the wrong thing to say but it's just how I feel."